Boot problem with GV-N460OC-1GI (GTX 460 1GB)

[terau]

Hello guys,

I just bought this card and it works great... when it boots from it .

My previous card was a Gigabyte 4850 1GB, and that card didn't had any problems.

I have an 790GX/SB750  motherboard and it has onboard graphics (HD3300).

The problem is:

Each time I power on the PC, it either boots from the NVIDIA card, or from the ONBOARD graphics.

And it always goes like that:

#1 boot from NVIDIA (onboard disabled) - then I do a normal shutdown (either from Windows or case button, doesn't matter).
power on again --> #2 boots from onboard (nvidia disabled) shutdown...
#3 boots from NVIDIA (onboard disabled) ...
#4 boots from onboard (nvidia disabled) ...
#5 boots from NVIDIA (onboard disabled) ...
#6 boots from onboard (nvidia disabled) ...
and so on.

So each time I shutdown the PC, the next time I turn it on, it switches the booting VGA.

If I do a full power cycle (completely turn off the PSU/Power and turn on), on the next boot, it boots always from the nvidia card. After that the same switching-mania happens.

As I said this problem didn't exist in my previous card, and before the 4850, I had an 8800GT, it didn't had the problem either.

I have changed every possible setting in the BIOS and nothing worked.

There is no option to completely disable the onboard VGA, because the motherboard is supposed to do it automatically when a discrete card is in, and it did in the previous cards.

There is however an option to choose the VGA to boot from. The options are PCI, PCI-EXPRESS, ONBOARD. The problem appears when the options are either PCI or PCI-EXPRESS. In the case of ONBOARD, it always boots succesfully from the onboard card, but who wants that...

I am out of ideas, and I don't think that my VGA is faulty, and this is probably an incompatibility issue, specific to the GTX 460, I think.

When the PC boots from the nvidia card, it works perfectly. I have done multi-hour gaming, benchmarks, everything works great. The GPU switching is the only problem.

The problem is unrelated to Windows or Drivers, because if I shutdown the PC in the bios boot screen (before even loading windows) and then power it on again, it once again switches cards.

It seems to me that the card does not power off properly, with the result to be unavailable on immediate next boot.

Any ideas? This is annoying because the card works just fine.

[Dark Mantis]

The most obvious thing is a power problem assuming that the card isn't faulty. If you would like to list a complete rundown of your hardware it would give us more to go on.

[terau]

My specs are
 (everything stock speeds, no OC)
Asrock AOD790GX/128M with latest BIOS.
Phenom II x6 1090T
8GB RAM KINGSTON 1066 @ 800mhz
LC-POWER HYPERION 700W


It is not a power problem, because when I select from BIOS to boot from "onboard" graphics, the nvidia card is "always" recognized but it acts as secondary card (Primary HD3300, Secondary NVIDIA in Win7). In the other cases(PCI/PCI-EXPRESS option), the nvidia card is not even recognized when it decides to boot from the onboard, (nvidia card does not exist in Windows).

I think it is either a slightly faulty card or most probably an incompatibility with the NVIDIA+AMD/ATI Motherboard. In the second case I will have to buy new motherboard, but I don't want to do that, because it works fine. That's why I am searching for a solution/workaround. Turning off PSU/Power and then turning on, to have guaranteed boot from nvidia is annoying.

Something goes wrong in the very beginning for the initialization of the card (the first second after power on).

[Dark Mantis]

There has been a problem with the later cards needing to have the firmware updated( not sure if this is one of them) so that might be an option. Failing that maybe the card itself is faulty but I would go with option one first.

[terau]

The is no available firmware for the card officially. The current version is F1.

I found F2 in a random technical support forum (probably leaked), I flashed it, but nothing changed, the same problem, and I went back to F1.

[Dark Mantis]

Try contacting Gigabyte technical support and see if they can help also to make sure they know the problem exists.

[terau]

Gigabyte responded, they suggested just to update the motherboard's bios, like they have no idea of similar problem.

So no firmware update available, and the techsupport of the shop I bought that card says that the card works fine in their systems.

No hope ...

[Dark Mantis]

So you have found the proverbial "brick wall", bad luck That's the problem often is getting a straight answer even to the question is as hard as solving the main issue. The only thing is WHEN they have a fix they will suddenly realise there was a problem

[F5BJR]

*
I have tested mixed graphics chipset without success win WIN7 ( run fine with XP !! )

Finnaly i use 2 * ATI cards

Pierre

[Dark Mantis]

That's probably the best solution Pierre, to be honest I have never liked the integrated graphics solution. It always seems to cause headaches one way or another.

[terau]

After some research, the onboard graphics have nothing to do with it. If the same motherboard didn't had onboard graphics it wouldn't boot at all (half of the time), the onboard here just acts as a fallback.

I have a workaround in mind, When I get the card back I will post my results.

[Dark Mantis]

We will await your post with interest. I am intrigued now as it is ovbviously a problem with the board recognising the graphics card at boot.

[terau]

Ok found the solution for this strange problem,

I solved it by changing PSU, but...

you can't actually blame my old PSU because it is not bad/faulty (after all 2 perfectly working PSUs didn't work).

The previous PSU couldn't make the card ready in the first "second" of the boot process, with result, of it being unavailable sometimes (and the onboard was used instead).

You could also blame the motherboard that asks too much, for the graphics card to be ready the first "second" of the boot process while it could wait some more. In my opinion a BIOS update could fix that (add more delay before graphics card initialization so it can get enough power), After all the same PSU with the same card on a different motherboard worked fine.

Or you could blame the nvidia card, that needs too much power to do "just" the initialization. After all the 4850 and the 8800GT worked fine in the same setup.

I don't know what the standards of pci-e / ATX/ BIOS specifications are but,
this problem depends on:

Graphics Card
PSU
Motherboard

And how they work together.

Hope this helps people that have boot problems on the new power hungry cards.

I was building a second system so the remaining perfectly working PSU is going to have some use, so in the end everything is fine.

[Dark Mantis]

Thanks for the heads up regarding the initialisation problem. So you think that a different PSU did the trick? Why, what was different with this PSU?
The nVidia 480 is actually out of the ATX specification because it uses too much power so I can't say I am surprised.

[terau]

what was different with this PSU? .. It was stronger than strong  

My previous tested PSU that didn't work were 625W and 700W, The new one is 850W... And also uses a single rail for the 12V, so because of that it gives the required power instantly on boot (faster than the others that have split 12v lines).

As I said, the PSU happened to work with the current motherboard, the problem wasn't exactly the PSU, But it works so...

The only problem is that I don't know who to blame...